


The Love You Feel

by PRC1857



Category: The Big Valley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PRC1857/pseuds/PRC1857
Summary: Love never dies . . . it just changes vibration . . . frequency . . .
Kudos: 6





	The Love You Feel

_Ghosts didn’t have much substance. All they were composed of was memories and heart._  
\- Deborah Harkness, The Book of Life: A Novel   
  
~-o0o-~  
  
 _You’d think after all this time he’d have figured out how to get noticed. How to haunt in such a way that his family would see him. . . hear him . . . sense his presence. But he hadn’t. The fact that he couldn’t force the world into the shape he deemed necessary any longer was the thing that irritated him the most about being dead._  
  
 _Well, no. That wasn’t really true._  
  
 _Not being able to make Victoria realize his touch . . . pat a son’s shoulder, or smack the back of a stubborn head! . . . That inability to connect was truly what had been the hardest to bear in these years since a bullet had pierced his heart and dropped him, dead before he hit the ground in the little grove. That was the worst._  
  
 _He wished he was able to get their attention . . . he wished it so badly he could almost taste it sometimes._  
  
 _Occasionally, he was pretty sure Victoria did. . . and Silas. He’d figured out the places to be closest to each of them, though. Whether they realized it or not, he was able to calm them, soothe them when they were upset or troubled. Comfort them, though they didn't connect that he was the source._  
  
 _With his Baby Girl, it was easy. When troubled she’d sit in his old chair by the fireplace in his study. Good Lord, but the number of times he’d panicked and worried and desperately fought to move heaven and earth . . . neither of which would respond to his will, to his utter fury . . . to save her from poor choices._  
  
 _Nick was anywhere outside . . . the barn. . . the tack room . . . the corral . . . that was where he and Nick connected most in life, so it made sense he could comfort his iconoclast most out there._  
  
 _With Jarrod, it was by the big marble fireplace. . . where they’d had their deepest conversations . . . some of them difficult, many of them challenging and invigorating, but always moving. It wasn’t lost on him that when Jarrod was troubled, he’d come down, late at night, and stand before that fireplace, a drink in hand . . . he could almost feel the boy calling to him._  
  
 _Poor Gene had been so little . . . only eleven when he’d died. They were just beginning to find ways to understand each other . . . Eugene was such a puzzle. Vic was right. . . the child had reminded him of his father-in-law. . . knowledge, ideas were like currency for Victor, and Gene appeared to be much the same._  
  
 _With Vic . . . well, that was in their bedroom, or when she gazed up at his portrait. Or when she was in her garden . . . Oh, hell, it was pretty much anywhere, he smiled to himself, gazing through his translucent hands down at the back of her head as she worked in her rose garden._  
  
 _He sent a wave of yearning and love toward her, and sure enough, she stopped digging at a bindweed root, frowning a moment, and picked up her head, listening._  
  
 _ **“I love you, Vic,”** he said, tenderly . . . with a voice that held no vibration, no frequency._  
  
 _And watched a gentle, small little smile play on her lips. She sighed, shook her head and went back to her work, a look of peace on her face though._  
  
 _He glanced toward the barn door and saw him come out. . . head down, shoulders slumped just a bit._  
  
 _He didn’t have to call to her . . . he knew she’d come._  
  
 _“He looks . . . so defeated.”_  
  
 _He glanced to his side and saw her tiny little frame, her soft fair hair, her tender lips._  
  
 _“He does, doesn’t he,” he agreed. “But. . . he’ll be all right, you know. He’ll get over her in time. Young love gone wrong always hurts. And he did love her . . . Maria.”_  
  
 _She sighed and nodded, perched on the kitchen portico roof beside him and watch the blond young man walk slowly toward the house, pause a moment, and lift his head, tilting it as though he’d heard something._  
  
 _She glanced at him then, besider her, and beseeched him with her eyes. He smiled, and though they couldn’t feel each other, they placed hands together, and both called._  
  
 ** _Heath . . ._**  
  
Eyes widening slightly, the young man paused, lips parted in surprise, then he closed his eyes, frowning . . . listening, so, so hard.  
  
 ** _We’re here for you, my sweet boy . . ._**  
  
 ** _Both of us, son . . . You’ll get through this, I promise you. Every day, it will get a little bit easier to bear, you hang in there. . ._**  
  
 ** _Someone very special is out there, darlin’, waiting for you when the time is right. . ._**  
  
“Heath?”  
  
Startled, the young man opened his eyes, and saw Victoria standing there, her arms full of roses and a look of concern on her face. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”  
  
He hesitated a moment, then titled his head, almost feeling love radiating at him in waves instead of heat from the sun, and in wonder he chuckled. “I . . . think I will be, Mother, thanks,” he said softly.  
  
She reached up her hand and gently cupped his young, hard cheek, tilting her head to look at him with such tender caring.  
  
 _He felt the shuddering sound of what would have been breath, in life. He glanced at her and smiled gently. "He'll be all right, I promise you."_  
  
 _“I’m grateful,” she whispered, and glanced at him, her eyes glistening. “I’m grateful she’s so good to him.”_  
  
 _“Me, too,” he admitted, watching them go into the kitchen together._

_~-o0o-~_


End file.
